The planet Earth just had the hottest June on record and July was the 4th hottest in history. California and the southwest could use some water right now. A new report on Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheet shows them both losing ice faster than the worst case predictions from a few years ago. All things considered it might surprise you to know that that the global air temperature has not grown all that fast since roughly the years 1998-2000. That would seem like a problem if warming were inexorably linked to carbon dioxide, which has hardly taken a break from accumulating.

Climate scientists need not have worried. Water has much more specific heat than air, meaning that a pound of water holds a hell of a lot more thermal energy than a pound of air. Try for example to cool a drink with a couple cubic inches of cold air. The oceans have a whole lot of water so a little warming below sea level accounts for a lot of energy that would otherwise heat the atmosphere. It turns out that the oceans, in particular the mid-to-deep Atlantic, have warmed up a lot.

An apparent slowdown in global warming since the late 1990s may be due to changes in circulation patterns in the Atlantic and Southern oceans, suggests a study published in the 22 August Science1.These circulation patterns carry sun-warmed tropical waters into the higher latitudes, where they sink and flow back towards the Equator, says lead author Ka-Kit Tung, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Tung says, this movement was relatively slow. That allowed the warm water to linger at the surface long enough to lose much of its heat to the air, thereby contributing to rapid global warming.

But around 1999, the currents sped up, sending relatively warm water into the ocean depths instead. That is enough, according to Tung and his co-author Xianyao Chen, an oceanographer at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, to explain why Earth’s land and ocean surface temperature seems to have plateaued since the anomalously warm year of 1998.

You might be asking yourself, what about those billions of tons of methane stored in fragile ‘clathrate’ crystals in the mid depth Atlantic? Do those clathrates not flash back into gas form when you raise the temperature even a little? If that methane were so sensitive to temperature then you would expect to see a lot more methane seeping from places where clathrates are especially dense, such as the US eastern seaboard.

Methane appears to be bubbling up from more than 500 vents on the Atlantic Ocean floor off the U.S. East Coast, according to a new study in a finding that could have profound long-term implications for the global climate.

While scientists suspected these so-called seeps existed there, until now they lurked undetected. Their discovery suggests similar seeps exist throughout the world’s oceans.

The seeps come from gas hydrates, an ice-like combination of water and methane that forms naturally with extreme cold and depth in the ocean. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and gas hydrates are thought to hold up to 10 times as much carbon as the earth’s atmosphere.

The seeps were discovered in a stretch of ocean waters from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Georges Bank, Mass. The majority are located at a depth of about 1,640 feet, which is at the upper level of stability for gas hydrate.

Now you might be asking yourself, didn’t methane cause those giant blow holes in Siberia? Indeed it did! Maybe skip the next free webinar promoting real estate on the Yamal Peninsula.

In Siberian permafrost, large deposits of methane gas are trapped in ice, forming what is called a gas hydrate. Methane remains stable and frozen at certain temperatures, but as the permafrost warms, and its internal strength decreases, it may be less able to withhold the build-up of sub-surface gases, says [Larry Hinzman, a permafrost hydrologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and director of the International Arctic Research Center], leading to a release.

Most of the time methane just bubbles up out of permafrost. Lately it bubbled more than usual. But if the melt goes deep enough and a cold winter flash-freezes the surface then methane coming from the deep melt, insulated from freezing by the surface ice, can build up a lot of pressure. As you can see above. That hole is 80 meters across.

Ruh-roh. I’m really beginning to wonder just how dramatic global warming may become in our own lifetimes. All the stuff I heard about over the years under the heading of “if X happens, of course, we’re all screwed.” seems to be happening, and at an ever-accelerating rate.

I read some stock message boards, and these guys legitimately believe it’s exaggerated and even if it’s a real problem you just need to dump pelletized iron in the ocean or release some sulfates into the upper atmosphere.

The “but Al Gore has a private” jet meme is depressingly effective at closing minds.

By my political lights, Obama has proved timid. That said, and barring his June 2008 FISA double-cross, I’ve since considered him a fairly candid guy. More often than not, he staked his positions out in honest (enough*) fashion.

For that reason, and until he’s left office, I’ll harbor hopes that he may yet jolt Americans, by speaking rude truths in public fashion.

No worries! Pretty soon things will get so bad that a large body of people will DEMAND that extreme measures be taken to fix the problem they said did not exist only a few short months previous. The climate change won’t kill us off but the fuck ups we make to stop it will, and probably sooner than we thought.

@Baud: I’m lucky to live in Sonoma county, Ca. Global warming is well understood around here, it being a straightforward vital thing and all.. So I cannot understand why other Americans do not understand. Or rather, I do, and it sickens me. Age and contempt are beginning to seep through my pores. Simply put, I believe– I know– today’s GOP is the party of American Fascism. And they own the “people’s airwaves”.

I’m looking at the western slope of the Andes in Argentina, predicted rainfall maps show it as one of the few places that keep their historic pattern. Might have to learn german to fit in, but the beer and brats would be worth it.

@srv: In the 80s I had a Bircher roommate who said global warming was a government plot. To raise land values in Canada. Unclear as to which government this was, likely the One World Govt or some such. I told him to cheer up, his house wasn’t 50 miles from the border and surely that would be good enough?

He doesn’t believe in it anymore though, now it’s a government plot to confiscate our freedom cars or something.

@Violet: Climate scientist Box overlooks the fact that Canada is on a lease, of sorts. A unspoken lease, one that stipulates that when The USA needs Canada’s water, we’ll take it. That’ll hold us well through his daughter’s lifetime, as well as afford us time to corner Denmark’s water supplies. Resistance is futile…

@muddy: I loved the Canadian series Intelligence (not to be confused the new cyber-American series).

It’s about the Canadian intel agency, CSIS, BC drug syndicates, evil US DEA/CIA, China and Big Bad American Multinationals who want Canada’s water. Sorta “The Wire” on a national scale. Once you get over the domestic wifey drama, the plots and acting are quite good.

I read someplace that the warning system in some level of beta provided many seconds of warning throughout the Bay area Sunday morning. It should be in place throughout California….

…but it’s too expensive. We’ll look back at this short-sightedness after the Big One hits and wonder what in the fuck we were possibly thinking.

We are well and truly fucked as long as the answers from one political party is more tax cuts and more bombing. When the Republicans are effectively decimated – and it will eventually happen – I hope there is time to unfuck things.

ETA: And a hearty fuck you to whoever came up with the Southern Strategy … and Ronald Reagan.

@The Dangerman: Within months of 1989’s 7.1 Bay Area earthquake, the Home Depot in San Carlos, Ca. began selling “earthquake detectors”. They were merchandised like kid’s candy in supermarkets, at every check-out. To this day, I regret not having bought one just for a laugh.

People focus on the rising sea levels, drought, crop failure, and all the rest, but what is going to get us is the geopolitical instability from global warming. The continental US is pretty well positioned, all things considered, and we have excellent infrastructure to handle the first climate blows that come along. But other countries do not, and this will be a problem.

There were various rumors surrounding the cancellation of the series. Kevin Baker from The National Post alleged: “There’s a theory afloat that CBC Television cancelled the unusually good drama Intelligence in fear of upsetting Canada’s New Government, which is thought to be slavering for an excuse to junk the nation’s public broadcaster and sell off the parts.”[

The 384 (!) forest fires in the Northwest Territory this summer have burned 3,323,285 hectares or 12,831 square miles. These fires are unprecedented in the baseline forest record going back 10,000 years.

@Anoniminous: I was out in RMNF in 2011 and STUNNED at the destruction of the trees by the beetles. Said it wasn’t cold enough anymore to kill the beetles (3 days straight of -15F I think). Can’t imagine how much worse it is 3 yrs later. Pretty much Colorado is fucked big time.

It’s been eight years since we’ve had a bark beetle killing winter. The Lincoln National Forest is in horrible shape. White Pine Blister is everywhere. Together they are killing off the Ponderosa pines by the tens of thousands. In the long run it’s what needs to happen. In the short term it’s sickening.

‘I read someplace that the warning system in some level of beta provided many seconds of warning throughout the Bay area Sunday morning.’

About ten seconds. BART is one of the few organizations currently receiving the service; they say it gives them time to stop trains going less than 40 mph and that will prevent accidents and equipment damage during earthquakes. Mainly they say it will reduce chance of derailments.

i heard a seismologist on the news say that. given California geology, they think they could get it up to 30 seconds to a minute with more money for R&D.

You in the Napa area? Glad you are OK. In SF I did not feel much, but the earthquake did not feel like it was very far away. So I was surprised that it was so severe. But I live on a rocky little hill, so probably that explains it.

‘ Methane popping out of the ground, tap that and burn it. Problem solved. ‘

I hope Lil’ Newtie runs for president in 2016, he will talk about bright new ideas like that. Might even get me to watch a couple of GOP primary debates. Otherwise I’ll check the Palin Channel for her take on it.

@Anoniminous: What I’m looking at is rainfall, preferably one that doesn’t change so the ecology isn’t stressed. The maps change, but the interior of Argentina seems to be one of the few places in the western Hemisphere that isn’t going to be hit with a severe reduction in rainfall.

I wouldn’t take any prediction, at this point, too seriously. AFAIK, the current prediction models are running behind the facts such as methane release in the arctic and off the east coast of the US, arctic ice thinning is running decades ahead of prediction, ditto for the Greenland glaciers.

No, I am a Central Coaster but passed through the Bay Area on the way home Saturday night from the Redwoods. From my parents place in SoCal, I could walk to the nearest evidence of the San Andreas (an artesian well) in a few minutes (and not walking THAT quickly).

ETA: I guess I like quake zones; I could drive to the Parkfield Bulge in a relative few minutes, too.

@Steeplejack (tablet): New Zealand will be fine, and everyone with with a million or two sees it as the perfect place to go. Every senior wing nut I meet down here in FL sees NZ as the last refuge of the white man. It’ll be 1984 with drones.

I ain’t got that kinda flow.

You need to find somewhere semi-off the grid where you can grow food that’s not gonna be featured by anglo TV as the place to go.

Sorry for the OT but I had the funniest encounter wit h my next door neighbor. She’s sixtiesh, still agile I guess. She locked herself out of her house and rang my doorbell so I invited her in and g ve her a glass of ice water. She is loud, and rangy, talks fast, she’s from California.

She said the person who planted this “cane bamboo” between our two yards “should be shot” I asked her if it was enrccahing on her yard and she said yes. I did not tell her that I planted the infamous and nefarious “bamboo cane?–it’s just cane, I sadly learned, not bamboo.). I gu ess I was a coward but the planting served its purpose as it visually shields a gap in my fencing from the street traffic.

I think if she were smarter she would pin that crime on me but I don’t really think she will.

@Anoniminous: Ponderosa pines don’t get white pine blister rust (it’s not in the white pine group) but it does get bark beetles. Lodgepole pines in the Rockies are also dying wholesale from bark beetles, again due to the lack of cold winters. White pine blister rust is particularly killing whitebark pines in the northern Rockies though it affects other white pine species around North America to varying degrees. It’s responsible for making eastern white pine far less common than it once was. It’s originally from the eastern hemisphere so our white pines don’t have good resistance.

@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Fracking is )EDIT: screwing the water supplies in PA.) I was thinking Erie PA, but I see all of this security mania snowballing in the U.S., and the NE only stays civil as long as the rest of the country is isn’t in turmoil, if the drought makes the west uninhabitable and curtails grain production at the same time the petrodollar regime starts crumbling, USA is gonna get dicey. Grain, weapons and the world’s reserve currency are the legs the country stands on, kick two of them out and there ail be worries

Climate scientist Jason Box moved to Denmark because he thought it would be safer for his daughter with the coming droughts, water issues, etc. in the US.

I know someone building a house for an MIT climatologist on the Mendocino Coast in northern California.
It’s a beautiful area with very few people. It’s on the cold and foggy side now, but according to MIT guy will have the best climate in the US when climate change kicks in.

Water has much more specific heat than air, meaning that a pound of water holds a hell of a lot more thermal energy than a pound of air.

Only about four times as much. Not a big difference.

However, the atmosphere weighs 5.5 quadrillion tons and the oceans weigh 1.4 quintillion tons (approximately) so the specific heat of the oceans total about a thousand times that of the atmosphere. That’s the big difference.

A bit late to the show, but watch Robin Williams Inside The Actors Studio to take your mind off the horrors of global warming. I almost passed out from lack of oxygen I was laughing so hard. It is truly amazing to watch his mind at work. So fast, so smart. He was almost a different species. And yet, one of the most human people ever.

@Hkedi: I have lived on Oahu for 15 years now, and am very worried about GW. Once the sea level starts to rise, and food shortages start happening due to desertification, we’re really fucked out here. We import 98% of what we eat and use, and if that dries up, we’ll all be at each other’s throats.

@Arclite: Well living on Oahu is the first part of your problem, If/when things fall apart, it’s going to be real bad over there. Better to live on one of the other islands. Maui, where I live, has a bit better balance of farmland and population. (Molokai or Lanai would be better though)

As for Desertification, and food shortages, I’m a little bit more hopeful on that. Hawaii has a strong culture for caring for the Aina (at least compared to the mainland), and the smaller sizes of the islands will (hopefully) mitigate any run-away desertification. We also have a strong culture of diverse and small scale farming, that hasn’t yet been wiped out by industrial farming. There is a lot of effort already in place to encourage growing and eating in Hawaii, from many sources, and I think we are positioned better than most places to survive the slow collapse of the global food net. Plus, eating locally makes a lot more economic sense than any of the other states except maybe Alaska.

@scav: Storm patterns are a real wild-card here. I think everyone was spooked bye Iselle and Julio, even though they only beat up Puna on the Big Island and Ulupalakua on Maui mainly. If it starts shifting the yearly line of tropical disturbances north as far as Hawaii, we will be in for a world of hurt. Still, compared to other places like Arizona or Florida, I’m ahead of the curve.

@NotMax:
No clue really. I remember the petitions in Alive and Well, but I have a lot of biology background and see it as pretty self defeating in the long run. Montsanto is pretty evil though, but they bring in a fair bit of money locally, and they just use us for growing seed. It could go either way, I remember reading recently (on the Hanabusa election) that Hawaii is “where polls go to die”.

The planet may have had the hottest June and July on record, but here in the DC metro area it has been downright pleasant. A refreshing change. Of course we are going to pay for that this coming winter I just know it.

@Viva BrisVegas: They wingnuts won’t find any friends in the white kiwis. Unlike Australia the white folks who settled New Zealand adopted and totally embraced the culture of the Maori. Most of the street signs that I saw had signs in both languages and the things that are sacred to the Maori – the kiwi, kea, silver fern and kaori tree – are precious to all New Zealanders.

Yes, part of that has to do with the fact that Maori were well familiar with fortresses and organized welfare before white folk arrived. Hard to impose your will when the other guys will gladly meet you on the field on equal terms and they have home field advantage. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi gave the Maori tremendous respect and has a similar role there as the US Constitution.

And the police there deal politely but very firmly with anyone who misbehaves with guns.

I expect an unpleasant and short stay for white supremacists who think they found a new nirvana.

i feel bad for CA. lived there all last year and the climate was wonderful (seriously, it ruined me for anything else). but no fucking rain. moved to ATL and we got like 7 inches of rain in the first month i was here. the grass is actually green.

Hawaii and New Zealand will probably come out OK as far as their local climate goes, but NZ will be pretty screwed from the sea level rise. They lose pretty much every city and near half the north island. I’d also be worried what the influx of water will do to the various fault lines.

We are so boned.

Comments are closed.

Get Involved!

It takes just 5 minutes, twice a week:

Make a call
Send an email
Send a postcard or fax
Make your voice heard!

For both local and national numbers, recommended scripts and approaches: